Apparently, Jon is convinced a rolling bonus (ANY form of rolling bonus) would "encourage lazyness".
Now, since he's the game's de facto deity, we can't question HIS definition of the term "lazyness", we can't question HIS opinion that a rolling bonus would encourage it, and we can't even question the limits of his ability to think of variations in the implementation of the rolling bonus - so it's pointless to even try.

The rest of us mere mortals, we have the benefit of being able to debate the finer points of all those definitions, and with a hyperactive imagination, I bet we can come up with a lot of possible schemes for the implementation of this bonus.
HOWEVER, that is not the main point - it's just a stage of discussions which would be helpful in determining the judgement criteria for the challenge.

THE CHALLENGE FRAMEWORK

We hereby assert that promoting lazyness is bad.

First off, we have to define lazyness in terms of CB "effort", and reach a consensus in defining it.
Second, we need to establish what could be considered as encouraging that lazyness in a clear-cut manner.

Those two things need to be done before we even start.

Finally, we need to come up with as many versions of implementation of a rolling bonus as possible.
New ways can be thought of at any given time.

THE ACTUAL CHALLENGE

Prove that all possible methods of implementation of a rolling bonus (that we can come up with) WOULD BE NOT JUST BAD, BUT WORSE THAN THE CURRENT N*B SYSTEM.
That second part is especially important - we have to hold the N*B system to the same level of scrutiny as the proposed rolling bonus implementations.

(we already asserted what is considered "bad", namely "promoting lazyness")

Demigod, the idea of this thread is to implement a "rolling bonus" instead of the N*B. I agree, laziness to me means that you don't have to hit all your BA to stay in the competition. A rolling bonus wouldn't encourage that, in all aspects a rolling bonus would encourage more people to stick around because they would be MORE competitive.

There is already a little bit of a rolling bonus in place - The BA regen tiers. Do the separate tiers have different reward bonuses or penalties? If you just gave the lower regen rate tiers a lower reward rate, it would slow the growth of the top characters, which would, in turn, allow the higher BA rate characters to catch up. If they do already have it, just increase it slightly.

Oh, and give 6/20 the negative penalties back. they only exist so people CAN'T catch up to them! Its crazy!

"There is already a little bit of a rolling bonus in place - The BA regen tiers. Do the separate tiers have different reward bonuses or penalties?"

No. They have increased rewards for the lower BA regens. It's all equal atm.

Getting rid of the increased rewards would be one way of sowing down the top.

Lazyness;

Allowing one player to pass another without equivalent effort.

(As in, you take a 6 month break, and you bonus is now large enough for you to catch up on the gap missed - and all the BA veryone else spent while you were away - with only a couple of button presses)

I personally think the NCB is worse for promoting lazyness myself. I've run countless NCB chars over the past 4 years and I've given up on all of them. Thrown them away. Because it is too easy to start again if you feel you haven't built a large enough character.

That's not to say I don't enjoy building chars, I do, but the current system does not encourage sticking with a built char. That is too much hard work when you can just start again with a new build.

Serious well done to all those who've stuck with chars longer than a year, even following an NCB. That's the real work.

What better way to promote laziness is there than make it so that 6 months of gameplay at ANY given time can yield pretty much the same, if not better results than continuing to play your old character without BA purchases ?
For instance, I am looking at my own character, and it would take anywhere between 7 and 9 months to make it to 6/20 and a lot of sustained effort afterwards to REMAIN in 6/20... or I could quit at any time, come back later (be it 9, 12 or 24 months later), start a NCB and end up slightly better off (the longer I wait, the better off I'd be).
Granted, I'd never make it into the higher 6/20 range either way, but I'd be better off than now for sure without any BA purchase at all.

And not only does it promote laziness, but it promotes abandonment of the old characters.

How can it be ? No detractors of the rolling bonus system ?
Because I can remember quite clearly a lot of voices against one in (more or less) recent threads...
Or is it just too hard to actually put your reasons for the dislike into words ? You know, because it might have just been a knee-jerk reaction instead of actually thinking it through ?
:)

Yup, sums it up quite nicely... why struggle to change something you perceive as not too good... when you can just lower your expectations and consider it good enough all of a sudden ?
I mean, why even bother when you see it's pointless ?
It's an old dog, let's just take it in the back and shoot it, put it out of its misery...

This thread is closed to new posts.
However, you are welcome to reference it
from a new thread; link this with the html
<a href="/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=002q4d">Challenge : prove *any* rolling bonus would be bad</a>